Texas truck chase and standoff ends with woman safe

DALLAS- A man who carjacked an 18-wheeler and held the driver hostage for four hours surrendered to police late Sunday after they shot the vehicle's radiator and tires and fired tear gas into the cab.

The driver and her dog ran to safety.

The standoff followed a 3-hour police chase through three counties. It began about 4:20 p.m. in Collin County, north of Dallas, when a man called police to say that his wife had been carjacked. Police said the man had been forced from the vehicle at gunpoint.

The chase wound along tollways, through downtown and residential sections of Dallas and onto Interstate 20 toward Fort Worth.

During the chase, the suspect conducted an interview with Dallas television station WFAA in which he said he did not believe the chase would end peacefully and spoke about injustice toward black men in the United States.

Department of Public Safety troopers pulled alongside the truck and a trooper used a rifle to fire at the radiator and tires, forcing the vehicle to a stop on the western edge of Fort Worth. The suspect surrendered about an hour later, after the tear gas was fired into the cab.

The man may also have been involved in two other carjackings prior to the chase, police said.

A man fitting the suspect's description carjacked a Lexus just before 3 p.m., said Carrollton police Sgt. Patrick Murphy. The man reportedly pointed a gun at someone who tried to help the victim.

"Within 10 minutes that Lexus was wrecked just north of our city in Denton County," Murphy said.

The suspect then flipped the car in a roadside ditch in Denton County, said Tom Reedy, a spokesman for the Denton County Sheriff's Office. The suspect then took an Infiniti from a driver who stopped at the scene, police said.

"I pulled over on the side of the road and rolled my window down and asked if he was OK," Dr. Joseph Surdacki told Dallas-Fort Worth television station KDFW. "The next thing I knew he put a gun to my head and just told me to get out of the car."

The man then filled up the car at a truckstop near Fairview in Collin County, but could not get the vehicle to start. He then took the tractor-trailer, police said.

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